Technology Trappist planets have water, may be 'habitable': researchers

05:25 06 february 2018

05:25 06 february 2018 Source:
afp.com

Scientists Identify Cells in the Brain That Control Anxiety

<p>People plagued with the uncomfortable thoughts and sensations characteristic of anxiety disorders may have a small group of cells in the brain to blame, according to a new study.</p>The paper, published in the journal Neuron, is based on experiments conducted on a group of lab mice. As is the case with human brains, the hippocampus in mouse brains is associated with fear and anxiety. But until now, researchers didn't know which neurons in the hippocampus were responsible for feelings of worry and impending danger.

PARIS: Seven planets recently spotted orbiting a dim star in our Milky Way galaxy are rocky, seem to have water , and are potentially " habitable ", researchers studying the distant system said Monday. A year ago, researchers announced the discovery of the seven Earth-like planets orbiting Trappist -1

water -- whose presence might make them " habitable " Seven planets recently spotted orbiting a dim star in our Milky Way galaxy are rocky, seem to A year ago, researchers announced the discovery of the seven Earth-like planets orbiting Trappist -1, an "ultracool" red dwarf star some 39 light years

Though much remains unknown about the planets' surfaces and atmospheres, the new measurements have not ruled out the possibility that they may harbour even rudimentary life, the scientists reported.

How NASA Could Discover Oceans on Distant Planets

Planets too far away to photograph could yield some clues to whether water—and maybe even life—could exist.But first, we have to see exoplanetary mountains. In a new paper to be published in the prestigious journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Columbia University astronomers Moiya A.S. McTier and David M. Kipping figured out what it might take to detect mountains on a world too far away to photograph even with our most powerful telescopes.

Seven planets recently spotted orbiting a dim star in our Milky Way galaxy are rocky, seem to have water , and are potentially " habitable ", researchers studying the distant system said Monday. A year ago, researchers announced the discovery of the seven Earth-like planets orbiting Trappist -1, an

Seven planets recently spotted orbiting a dim star in our Milky Way galaxy are rocky, seem to have water , and are potentially " habitable ", researchers studying the distant system said Monday. A year ago, researchers announced the discovery of the seven Earth-like planets orbiting Trappist -1, an

"So far, no sign allows us to say that they are not habitable," said University of Birmingham astronomer Amaury Triaud, the co-author of a study on the subject.

"All the traffic lights we have passed so far are green."

Research teams gleaned more information about the dwarf star at the centre of the Trappist-1 system, as well as improved measurements of the size and mass of each planet, and the composition of their atmospheres.

All seven are mostly made of rock, with up to five percent of their mass in water -- though it may be in the form of gas or ice, or trapped deep inside the rocky orbs, researchers said.

On Earth, the oceans account for about 0.02 percent of our planet's mass.

A year ago, researchers announced the discovery of the seven Earth-like planets orbiting Trappist-1, an "ultracool" red dwarf star some 39 light years from our home.

Hackers infect Android phones, TVs to mine cryptocurrency

Chinese researchers found hackers turning internet-connected devices into tools for creating caches of the digital currency Monero.The attack affected 7,000 devices in China, which were hacked into a network that harnessed the processing power of the connected devices to mine, or digitally create, the Monero cryptocurrency, according to ZDNet. Though not as big as some recent botnets, security experts say this approach will increasingly be used by hackers looking to make money off of other people's computers, IoT devices, phones and tablets.

Seven planets recently spotted orbiting a dim star in our Milky Way galaxy are rocky, seem to have water , and are potentially “ habitable ”, researchers studying the distant system said Monday. A year ago, researchers announced the discovery of the seven Earth-like planets orbiting Trappist -1, an

PARIS: Seven planets recently spotted orbiting a dim star in our Milky Way galaxy are rocky, seem to have water , and are potentially " habitable ", researchers studying the distant system said Monday. A year ago, researchers announced the discovery of the seven Earth-like planets orbiting Trappist -1

As for the odds of the planets hosting organic life forms, "we cannot say at this stage, as they are vastly different from the only planet we know to harbour life (Earth)," Triaud told AFP.

"But they have suitable characteristics and are to date the best place beyond the edge of our (Solar) system to search."

The presence of liquid water is considered essential for life to exist anywhere.

Astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to learn more about the Trappist system by studying the planets' atmospheres as they passed in front of their star, appearing as a dark, travelling dot from the observer's point of view.

Findings were published Monday in two papers in the journals Nature Astronomy, and Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Cooler than the Sun

All seven planets were considered potential candidates for harbouring water, but the chances to find it in liquid form are highest in the temperate "Goldilocks" zone -- not too far from the star for it to be frozen, nor too close to evaporate.

Scientists Recreate Titan’s Methane Ocean In Lab

NASA plans to send an autonomous submarine to Saturn’s largest moon Titan to study the liquid methane oceans on its surface.To further the study of Titan, which NASA has been analyzing using data collected by the Cassini mission, scientists at Washington State University recreated a methane ocean in a laboratory. To be exact, the WSU researchers built a test chamber filled with a “liquid mixture at very cold temperatures to simulate the seas of Titan. They added a two-inch, cylinder-shaped cartridge heater that would approximate the heat that a submarine would create.

An artist's illustrations of how the seven planets orbiting Trappist -1 might appear alongside some images of rocky planets in our Solar System. 6 — Seven planets recently spotted orbiting a dim star in our Milky Way galaxy are rocky, seem to have water , and are potentially “ habitable ”, researchers

Seven planets recently spotted orbiting a dim star in our Milky Way galaxy are rocky, seem to have water , and are potentially " habitable ", researchers studying the distant system said Monday. Though much remains unknown about the planets ' surfaces and atmospheres

The Trappist-1 system is considered the current best hope for finding evidence of alien life.

"When we combine our new masses with our improved radii measurements, and our improved knowledge of the star, we obtain precise densities for each of the seven worlds, and reach information on their internal composition," said Triaud.

"The more we learn about these planets, the more habitable they seem to be," Grimm told AFP by email.

Compared to our Solar System, the Trappist-1 family is very tightly-knit. With orbits ranging from 1.5 to 12 days, the planets would have fit comfortably in the distance between the Sun and its closest planet, Mercury.

Trappist-1 has a mass less than 10 percent the mass of our Sun and is much cooler, which explains why its planets can orbit so nearby.

Rare sighting of sperm whale off B.C. coast .
VANCOUVER - Researchers studying the activity of whales off British Columbia's coast have had an unusual and "surreal" encounter with a sperm whale. Jared Towers is part of a Fisheries and Oceans Canada team monitoring the sound of cetaceans and marine mammals using a network of hydrophones in the Johnstone Strait off northeastern Vancouver Island. Towers said his colleagues at a research station on Hanson Island heard an unusual echolocation and determined on Sunday that the sound didn't belong to orcas typically found in the area."We started inferring that it was a sperm whale and kind of convinced each other that's what it was," he said Wednesday.

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